WRITERS ASK ISSUE 75 EXCERPTS

It's a metaphor, for all of us are haunted by the other world we call our past. So, by having that made literal through the process of immigration, it doubles down on all the hauntings that make up a normal person.—Junot Díaz, interviewed by David Naimon

Well, the simple answer to that question is discipline. When a short story first comes to you, it's very easy to become distracted from it: to pick up the phone and accept an invitation to lunch, or check your email, or decide that it's really about time you mowed the lawn. It's hard to force yourself to sit down at your desk and see the story through from beginning to end, but I've often felt that certain stories have a very temporal quality to them and if you don't force yourself to sit down and write them when they first come to you, if you tell yourself that you'll get back to them next week, then they sometimes vanish.—Andrew Porter, interviewed by Trevor Gore

For this new story, I want it to be set in the dust-bowl drought. Other people might start with a character, and it might even be a placeless situation, but I don't feel inside a story unless I have a place in mind.—Karen Russell, interviewed by Carmiel Banasky

I always think about that E.L. Doctorow quote: "Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." That's very much my writing process—groping through the dark, trying to find things in that darkness.—Laura van den Berg

These personality markers serve to add surprising and interesting layers to your characters that may indirectly connect to the needs and movement of your story and the themes that compel you. Your guy can be the type who harbors strong opinions about sports, say, though sport has nothing to do with your novel. We all carry contradictions and trivialities within us, and not everything has to line up perfectly in a character's profile. In fact, I'd say the jagged edge of paradox and contradiction brings a character closer to the truth of what it is to be human.—Dennis Bock